


Collocation

by Batdad (MizGoat)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Reunions, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 16:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16705930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizGoat/pseuds/Batdad
Summary: Grey knew he could live without Depa Billaba, but he didn't want to. And now that she had returned to active duty, he didn't have to.





	Collocation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [countessofbiscuit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessofbiscuit/gifts).



Grey sat and watched as his general’s new padawan chatted with the squad of curious shinies who had surrounded him. Other commanders had warned him that new troops and padawan commanders often got along like a house on fire. Rookie troops and rookie Jedi apparently had enough in common to make friendships flow easily. What they hadn’t warned him about was the complicated bundle of emotions that it would bring.

Certainly there was the satisfaction that his troops were connecting and forming group bonds. There was even a curious sort of paternal pride. But there was also an undercurrent of unease as well. They were so young. The padawan, Caleb, of course, who was still very much a child, but his troops as well. Had he been so young when he had first left Kamino? Surely not. Perhaps he would discuss it with General Billaba. She likely wouldn’t have an answer, but she might have some perspective that would help the problem make more sense.

He had missed her when she had been in the coma. The first weeks had been the worst. He’d been overwhelmed with the grief of losing so many of his men, and he hadn’t had his most constant source of wisdom to turn to for advice. Indeed he hadn’t been sure if he was mourning for her as well as she hung seemingly lifeless in the bacta tank. But even when he’d gotten his feet under him, he still found himself aching to have her near. Not because he needed her, but simply because he had wanted her.

“I heard about the vigil you kept while I was recovering,” Depa said as she sat down next to him. Grey didn’t quite believe the rumors about Jedi being mind readers, but they certainly had a knack for the uncanny coincidence.

“Vigil sounds a bit fancy for just coming to visit you in the hospital when I was on leave.” He watched her out of the corner of his eye as the edge of her lip twitched upward.

“Visiting on shore leave sounds rather understated given that I was led to understand you spent hours at a time at my side.”

“I missed you,” his voice was low, but he doubted anyone nearby would have overheard him unless he had started to shout. The shinies and Caleb had moved from simply being curious about one another to some sort of roughhousing game that involved no small amount of excited yelling. Grey thought he could see a ball in the middle of their scrum, but he wasn’t entirely sure about that.

“Do you think I need to go collect my padawan?” She asked, half out of her chair already.

“Ah, let them be.” He waved his hand loosely in front of her. “I’ll stop them if they get up to anything too lively. They won’t have many more days like this.”

“Alright, I leave it in your more than capable hands.” She stood up despite his gesture and caught his waving hand in one of her own. Grey swore he could feel the heat of her fingers through his glove, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. Their eyes met and he offered a slight nod to answer her unspoken question.

* * *

 

Having an affair with your Jedi general sounded objectively rather dramatic and salacious, but Grey has found in practice it had been neither. Their time together was far to infrequent, and he counted each moment of it precious. Still, it had always been defined by a profound sense of calm. Depa had a way of making even a few stolen moments feel like a perfectly measured beat of poetry.

He was currently stripped to his blacks and sitting on the floor of the single dorm room Depa had commandeered as her own quarters when they had taken over some evacuated university housing as a temporary barracks as they had come to refortify the city. The previous occupant had left a poster of a Twi’lek pop singer on the wall above the bed. She smiled down from a cloud of candy pink light and glitter that felt unnervingly removed from the reality he lived in.

Instead he focused on working his thumbs into the sole of Depa’s foot in slow circles. She was sitting on the edge of the bed reading the latest reports to him to him and absentmindedly running her fingers through his hair. Her voice lilted over the details of troop deployments and defensive structures as he did his best to rub away the tension in her arches. Occasionally he’d steal a glance upward to admire the way the light caught on the halo of stray hairs that had escaped her normally neat braids after a long day.

She stopped sharply with a harsh intake of breath and kicked him.

“That tickles,” she scolded, but her scorn was short lived as he grinned up at her unrepentant. “All right I can take a hint.” A smile crept up the corners of her lips. “Come up here and let me return the favor for a while.” She patted the bed next to her.

“You want,” Grey paused and let the words draw out, “to tickle me?”

Depa let out an exasperated sigh and with a movement almost too fast for him to follow she slid her hands under his arms and pulled him onto the narrow bed. It creaked out a groan of protest, and they both froze in the awkward positions they had landed in. After a moment when the bed didn’t collapse beneath them, they broke into nervous laughter.

“I’m sure this bed has survived worse than us,” she murmured.

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow.

Her only response was a small affirmative noise as she shifted to a more comfortable seated position. He followed suit still wondering where she would have gained such insight into the uses of dormitory furnishings.

She cupped her hands around his face and seemed to be searching for something there. He met her gaze for a moment before closing his eyes and letting himself sink into the sensation of her hands on his cheeks. He leaned a little into one hand and she lifted the other to trace a finger along the long diagonal line of scar tissue that ran across his face.

“Quit frowning,” he told her. “Not a trooper in the GAR that minds a decent, clean facial scar.”

“Your eyes are closed.”

“And if I opened them, I’d see you frowning.” He turned to kiss the palm that had been cradling his cheek. When he turned and opened his eyes he found her brow furrowed but her mouth carefully neutral.

“You got this because of me.” Her voice was flat and a little distant. Her eyes no longer met his.

“In the strictest sense I suppose. If you hadn’t been there, I’d have been a corpse. I’m not fully trained in medical, but I don’t think they scar up.” His voice came out a little angrier than he had intended to. His knuckles still ached a little from laying out some lieutenant in the 91st that had been idiot enough to spread rumors about his General being damaged goods where Grey could hear him. He’d held on to some vague hope that that sort of talk hadn’t reached her, but he realized that was foolish.

“It would seem the question on everyone’s mind but yours is if I’m ready to return to active duty.” Her hands had returned to stroking the edges of his face. He leaned forward to kiss her, and hummed with pleasure at the way she lifted her arms and let them slide over his shoulders as he moved closer.

There was still something slightly hesitant in the way she kissed him back but that faded as he let the kiss linger, then deepened it.  For his own part he couldn’t seem to get his mind to quit comparing the warm, living Depa wrapping her arms around his neck to the distant, still Depa he had spent far too much time watching float in bacta.

“I missed you,” he whispered, their faces still close enough that his lips brushed hers as he spoke. “I’m glad to have you back.”

“You’re biased.” She smiled and he couldn’t resist planting another quick kiss on those smiling lips before he answered.

“The whole galaxy’s biased somehow. The fact that I’m biased for you doesn’t make me less trustworthy. I’ve fought at your side. I think that makes my opinion worth entertaining.” He slid his hands under the heavy outer robe she was still wearing and let them settle in the small of her back. There was still more space between them than he really wanted, but he wasn’t willing to rush tonight, and if he got to much closer he wasn’t sure he’d keep his composure.

“And I suppose it’s of no consequence that I could get you killed?” Her smile was gone again.

“That was true before,” he paused not certain if he wanted to directly reference her injuries. In the end he let the sentence hang. “I’ll die with you or without you. Die for you, or die in a random accident. I’m a soldier. We’re at war. I trust you. I want to stay at your side.” He almost added that he wanted to die for her more than he wanted to die for some vague notion of a republic, but thought better of it. He was trying to reassure her, not make her more self conscious of the sway she held over his life, after all.

“Alright,” she said slowly. “I think I understand.” She ran her fingers through the the short hairs at the base of his neck and he shivered.

“I don’t know how much more patience I’m going to have for very important discussions tonight.” His voice had gone suddenly rough.

“Very well.” She went to give him what he was sure she meant to be a quick kiss, but he followed her as she pulled back. He kept following her until he was laying atop her on the bed.

He still couldn’t quite shake the image of her dead still body floating in bacta, but he was trying. He could feel her pulse beneath his lips as he kissed her throat. Each beat of it confirming for him what he already knew. He could live without her, but as much as it was in his power to choose, he wasn’t going to.


End file.
